Editorial: Let juries decide who’s dangerous

Friday

Feb 22, 2008 at 12:01 AMFeb 22, 2008 at 10:22 PM

All defendants rights should be inviolate. But so should the public’s. We cannot allow the scales to be tipped so heavy in one’s side favor that someone who is clearly a danger when loose is allowed to manipulate the system to their advantage.

The Patriot Ledger

The headline on Friday’s front page of our paper asked is the “Judicial system for sex offenders broken?”

You can take away the question mark because recent events have shown that, indeed, the system to keep the state’s most dangerous sexual deviants away from the public is failing and needs fast and sure repair.

Many are focusing their ire on Superior Court Judge Richard Moses, whose decision that neither David Flavell nor Corey Saunders were sexually dangerous put them back on the streets where they allegedly have re-offended.

Flavell, a registered Level 3 sex offender, is charged with peering at a woman in a Border’s bathroom stall in Braintree while Saunders, also a Level 3, is charged with raping a 6-year-old boy in a New Bedford library.

But Moses, who should be held accountable for his lapses in judgment, is a symptom and not the problem. He is merely a pawn in an effort by sex offenders and their lawyers and experts, usually hired with taxpayers dollars, to shop for judges they deem most sympathetic and likely to rule in their favor.

When the state Legislature resurrected the Sexually Dangerous Persons statute in 1999 as part of the creation of the Sex Offender Registry Board, the law stipulated the district attorney who convicted the offender be notified 90 days before a sex offender was slated to be released.

The two-level civil process would start with a probable cause hearing on the district attorney’s motion then proceed to either a jury trial or bench trial, whichever the offender chose. The district attorney has no say.

Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone, a longtime prosecutor at both the state and federal level, has filed a bill to change that. He cites some startling numbers from his district that shows since 1999 when a judge is asked to determine dangerousness, only 60 percent are ruled dangerous whereas when a jury decides, it’s nearly 70 percent.

Every defendant should have the right to due process and when we talk about sex offenders who have already served their sentences and are then looking at a civil commitment that could be for the rest of their lives, the reasonable doubt standard is imperative.

But reasonable doubt is not the same as no doubt and it should be a panel of citizens who determine that, not a single jurist swayed by hired guns.

All defendants rights should be inviolate. But so should the public’s. We cannot allow the scales to be tipped so heavy in one’s side favor that someone who is clearly a danger when loose is allowed to manipulate the system to their advantage.